subs. (old).—A vagrant or beggar; one who CANTS (q.v.) or uses the secret language otherwise called Peddlars’ French, St. Giles’ Greek, etc. The form has varied, Greene using CANTE, whilst many writers speak of the fraternity as the CANTING CREW.—See Appendix. [From CANT, verb, sense 1, + ER.]
1592. GREENE, A Quip for Upstart Courtiers, Harleian Miscellany, V., 396. I fell into a great laughter, to see certain Italianate CANTES, humourous cavaliers, youthful gentlemen, etc.
1625. JONSON, The Staple of News, Act ii. A rogue, a very CANTER I, sir, one that maunds upon the pad.
1630. TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Works, II., 239, i. Two leash of oyster-wives hyred a coach on a Thursday after Whitsontide … they were so be-madam’d, be-mistrist, and ladified by the beggars, that the foolish women began to swell with a proud supposition or imaginary greatness, and gave all their mony to the mendicanting CANTERS.
1878. CHARLES HINDLEY, The Life and Times of James Catnach. ‘The Song of The Young Prig.’
| My mother she dwelt in Dyot’s Isle, | |
| One of the CANTING CREW, sirs. |
